Abstract:

The wars in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine are just a few cases whereby Russia and Turkey have been confronted; hence, they have also been able to work together. Although Russia and Turkey have diverse interests in their near abroad, they have realized the necessity of cooperation. They have continuously improved their relations not only for ‘technical areas’ such as energy, military, and trade but also for regional and global political issues, and they have cooperated through their joint resistance to the West by sharing their ambition of a greater “imperial” role in global politics.

In this vein, this study aims to investigate the mechanisms through which Russia and Turkey's leaders – Presidents Putin and Erdogan, consolidate their power (both externally and internally) and the rhetoric they employ(-ed) in (re-)constructing the country's position and its imperial identity in world politics. Both leaders engage(-d) with an imperial identity, distinguishing them as neither European nor Asian. Using the ‘imperial’ identity has been focused on promoting the more significant influence of the historical empire(s) on domestic and international politics. The imperial identity subsequently promotes the revival and reconstitution of the empire and the imperial past, whereby Russia and Turkey have been re-engaged with their historical empire(s) at the internal and external levels.

However, current literature either neglects or inadequately addresses the link between the national identity changes and the structural changes in the international system by Presidents Putin and Erdogan. The transformation and changing of Russia and Turkey's state identity should be examined at the internal (national identity) and external (international system) levels. Since the state identity is not a fixed concept, political leaders continually interpret and reinvent the identity in light of historical and political events. In this case, Russian and Turkish imperial identities successfully show that their imperial goals did not stay [only] in the past. They are still the prospectuses for the current and future of the country's role in world politics.

As a result, this research seeks an answer to the following question concerning the imperial state identity in Russia and Turkey under the Putin and Erdogan regimes: “How do political leaders in Russia and Turkey employ the concept of imperial consciousness to make state identity in the hierarchical international system?” Within this framework, the primary purpose of the research is to examine the discursive construction(s) of empire and imperial consciousness in the making of state identity.